the.com/swatch
Switzerland's answer to Japan: cheap plastic watches that saved an entire industry from extinction.
means A small sample piece of fabric, paint, color, or material used to show what the full version looks or feels like.
from From late Middle English 'swatch,' originally meaning a tally or counterfoil and then a sample strip of cloth — its earlier history is murky, possibly dialectal, and not securely tied to any older root. (The watch brand is a separate, modern coinage, often explained as a blend of 'Swiss' and 'watch.')
- name origin
- Short for second watch, not Swiss watch
- saved swiss
- Rescued Swiss watchmaking from 1980s quartz collapse
- few parts
- Just 51 components, half a normal watch
- spawned smart
- Swatch later co-launched the Swatch Group empire
- art objects
- Limited editions by Keith Haring fetch fortunes
swatch internet time — timekeeping system launched by swatch in 1998 dividing day into 1000 beats instead of hours
swatch group acquisition 1983 — merger of asuag and ssih creating the swatch group, switzerland's largest watch manufacturer